


The Princess of Hearts

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Quests
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU- no curse. Queen Regina has been defeated, but her evil deeds have taken their toll on the lands, and the results of her greatest magics remain unknown. Years later, Princess Emma makes a discovery, and a promise, that will bring the awkward and self-doubting girl to the chance to become the hero she was meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The day that Prince James, called "Charming", kissed Snow White and broke the Evil Queen's spell, the ripples spread throughout the entire kingdom. All the peoples, from the peasants in the village to the fairies in the woods, were free to move about their lives again, free of the Queen's wrath and sorcery. 

Well almost all. For magic often has a tendency to remain, and though the Queen was stripped of her power, those affected by her most evil of spells, continued to hurt.  
Those who had offended her the most, she had stolen their very beating hearts. 

And since no one else, not even her personal guards knew of this, those hearts remained locked away beneath the palace, all boxed in neat little rows. The Queen of another land remained icy cold, the wise old woman of the north woods remained cruel, even the Queen of the forest fairies herself remained as ruthless as ever. 

And as for the one kept closest to her, the young hunter raised in the woods himself, he could only quietly nod and head toward his former home when Queen Snow spoke to him. She said that if he desired to stay at the palace, they would find a place for him, but if he wanted to return to the woods, he would not be persecuted for anything he did under her stepmother's rule. The brave and kind girl whom he had spared in the forest had morphed into a confident and gracious woman. But the empty void in his chest remained unmoved, so he turned and left, left the stark, cold palace that had been his prison for so many years, returning to his brother and sister wolves, a shell of the man he was. 

He thought it for the best that way. 

***************

Even only a few days old, reaching out to the sunny window while still in her mother's arms, Princess Emma was never a girl content to stay still. When she learned to walk, she quickly moved on to running, tearing about the gardens and the castle as though being chased by a bear, climbing anything she could find. It was not uncommon for a servant, sometimes empty-handed, sometimes carrying food or other spillables, to turn a corner and be tossed head over heels by a collision with the golden haired child, once again failing to look carefully ahead of her. These were always smoothed over by Snow, with an apology, and a gentle insistence that Emma help clean whatever mess she had caused.  
Indeed, more alike in personality than most would realize, Snow loved her daughter. She called the girl her little bird, always flitting from place to place, but as she showed her, like the bluebirds and doves that nested near the chamber windows and in the stables, always coming home to roost. Every morning, Snow would braid Emma's hair, the elaborate loops keeping her sun-colored curls neat no matter how much running she did, and tell her stories. Stories of the creatures of the woods, fairies, trolls and unicorns. Stories of princesses from far off lands, and a few whose kingdoms were closer. Stories of clever commoners, trickster beasts, brave princesses and valiant knights, and how help comes to those who help themselves, and happy endings for those who persevered. 

As Emma grew, she crashed less and less. But she remained on the move, always searching and exploring. She adored riding with her mother on her horse Bluebell, dancing with the girls from the village, and racing with the servant's sons in the yard. 

Lessons left her fidgeting and bored. It wasn't that she was unintelligent; in fact she was quite a quick learner. But the vagaries of history and the complexities of economic theory and political relationships seemed so unimportant when it was sunny outside and there was a whole world out there. 

She did, however learn quite a lot. From her mother, about the birds and the animals, how to ride, how to survive. 

“Just in case” Snow always said, soothing her ever worried husband’s fears for his daughter. They rarely spoke of the jaunts Snow and Emma took into the forest on horseback. Trips that made Emma suspect that secretly her mother carried as much of an itchy foot as she did. 

From her father, how to handle a sword, and a dagger and the importance of being good to people, all people.

“Good or bad fortune may strike anyone at any time, and fortune is indeed a cruel mistress” ending the stories of his boyhood spent as a shepherd with his mother. Though he spoke of the hardships they faced, his wistful face gave away the fond memories of days gone by. Emma hoped, at least, that he considered her and her mother good fortune.  
While the palace was her home, Emma always longed for the world around her. The little villages and market towns, and the rural farming communities that made up most of her parents kingdom held so much more appeal than the walls of home. And none more than the mountains as high as the clouds and the forests that stretched as far as the eye could see. Her rides with her mother could only go so far before they must turn for home, with so much of the world still unexplored. It was these, the realm of trees and streams, the home of beasts both mundane and magical, which held Princess Emma's heart. 

And soon, her destiny.


	2. The Wolf and the Hunter

Throughout her childhood, whenever she could get away from the castle and did not desire the company of her same-age playmates, Emma would head for the woods. She had wandered in a few yards and climbed a tree when a group of the boys in the courtyard hadn't wanted to play with her because she was a girl. She climbed that tree and stayed up there all through the morning. After coming down, and coming home to lunch, she marched straight back out to that courtyard and given those boys what for. 

She'd followed the path further the day that her parents had told her they were having another child. She had been ecstatic. Many of the children in the village came from large families and she had always wanted a sister. Maybe this sister would even help take the whole someone-needs-to-rule in the future thing off of her back. Emma was ok with being a princess most of the time, but official functions and royal duties bored her entirely to death. They kept her inside as well. 

That was the first time she saw the wolf- a large, mostly gray creature, standing far to the right off of the path, staring at her with its bright blue eyes. She had stood still as a brick, the breeze gently blowing her hair around her face until it approached her. Logically, she knew the wolves were protected in the kingdom, and were not known to have ever hurt a human, but she wasn’t even six years old and it was so big compared to her. Her heart was starting to flutter rapidly, when the wolf nuzzled her thigh and licked her hand, and then turned and left.

The wolf turned up a few more times, though she was not entirely sure if it was the same one. It became as much a part of her journeys as the stream that ran through, or the patch of brightly colored wildflowers, or the funny shaped rocks that she would climb to the top of. The scholar who tried to teach her history spoke of far away places as though they could be fully known from a few dry lines of description. If any of them were as vast and vivid as the woods she had come to know so well, then Emma knew she wanted to see, and feel them for herself. 

At the age of thirteen, when escaping briefly into the woods to escape the formal dinner and village dance to bid farewell to a visiting Prince and his procession, she had gotten very lost. The path had begun to hopelessly wind, and the trees had all begun to look the same to her. It was near dark, and the sun had dropped so far out of sight that she could hardly see more than ten feet in front of her. This (as well as her growing anxiety, though she would be rue to admit to that) is the answer she holds up to why the appearance of the wolf several paces in front of her frightened her so that she stumbled backwards with a yelp, knocking over the stranger who she hadn't noticed behind her.   
Embarrassed, she brushed herself off and murmured an apology to the stranger, who stood up again. 

"You should be at home, these woods can be dangerous for a girl you're age"

She flashed with a bit of anger at the man's assumptions, and got a good look at him. Fairly tall, older than her, but not as old as her parents. Curly brown hair tumbled over his forehead, He wore simple clothes, mostly of animal pelts. He carried a quiver of arrows over one shoulder. And he looked as though he hadn't seen a town in sometime. His expression was mostly blank, but Emma noticed, he had rather kind eyes. 

"I can handle myself" she said, curtly, "I'm...just a little lost is all". 

He smiled a bit, in a slightly arrogant manner which made her redden, she continued, removing her shoes "Which is the tallest tree here?" He pointed. She leaves her cloak on the ground to make her way to it. The branches on the fir didn't start low enough, so Emma started from the next tree over, scampering branch to branch up the trunk, bark rough under her hands. With the skirt of her dress falling below her knees impeding she thanked heavens that even her nicer dresses were no where as long or full as her mothers or the other royals. Climbing a tree hadn't been part of the plan when she left, only a walk to calm herself and diffuse some of her less charming impulses. 

She reached the top, and turned her eyes to the horizon. The sun had become naught but a yellowish glow between two mountains in the West, and the stars were indeed starting to shine, but the summer lanterns in the village had already been lit and out shone like a beacon from the southwest. An easy route.

She landed poorly on the way down, her skirt tripping her, causing her to tumble backwards into the trunk. A strong hand reached out to help her up, which she then dropped to brush the dirt off the back of her now torn skirt. 

"Just great" she mutters to herself "missing far too long and a mess."

She's preoccupied enough that she does not notice that not only is the man still there, but a furry muzzle is nudging at her and looking up at her with blue eyes. 

"You again?" she says, hand cautiously petting the animal between the ears as it nuzzles her hip. 

"My sister seems to have taken to you" The man remarks.

"Your sister is a wolf?" She asks, face snapping up in surprise. 

"The wolves in these woods are all my brothers and sisters, and I am one of them." he says solemnly. 

"Wait- if you live amongst the protected wolves in the kingdom.." 

He cuts her off abruptly "Princess, if you know where you need to be I suggest you start on the way home now. Your mother will worry."   
He hands her the fallen cloak and his fingers brush hers for a moment before he turns, adjusts his quiver, and heads to the north, followed by his sister wolf. Emma's head is swirling with thoughts, and her face is dumbstruck, and as the hunter retreats into the woods the only words she can seem to make come out of her mouth are-  
"How did you know who I am?" She yells at his as he disappears into the trees. But he does not seem to hear her, or does not care to answer. 

She dons her cloak again, and turns to forge her path back to the castle. She pretends that the movement in her stomach is worry about getting home in time, and that the hand he touched wasn't unusually warm. 

Anna met her in the back courtyard, running towards her as she entered from the woods. 

"Emma where have you been! Mother's worried"

Anna, who must have been dancing the entire time with the other children, remained completely immaculate in her dress. Anna, at nine years old, was already Emma's opposite in so many ways. Dark haired and solid where Emma was light hair and willowy. The serene, poised immovable rock to her older sister's windswept persona. Studious, polite and graceful, she was the child that any royal parent would want to have as an heir. 

Anna would never run off into the woods and risk embarrassing the family. 

And right now she could make or break Emma's situation.

"Tell mother I'm fine. Say I felt ill and went upstairs for a bit and I'll be right back down. And I will- I just need to change first". 

She raced through changing into a dress with a non torn skirt and made her way down into the front courtyard, mixing easily into the crowd. Her parents stopped her to check on her and make sure she was feeling better. It seemed to go over well enough, but Emma caught the knowing gleam in her mother's eye.   
She spilled her guts to her later that night, sitting in her room. Snow remained gentle and understanding, and merely gave her a quiet lecture on expectations. 

"If you're overwhelmed or something's upsetting you, tell me or your father, don't just run off like this". 

It drove Emma mad. She knew she was letting her parents down and her mother wouldn't even get angry at her for it. She wanted so badly to please them, but every long diplomatic talk led to fidgeting, every social event to bouts of awkward manners, and every visiting dignitary a reminder of the rest of the world she had yet to see.   
Before going to sleep she sat on her windowsill staring out into the world. 

And she swore that night she could hear a wolf howl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the pilot script, Emma’s name was written as Anna. I brought her in both to act as a foil to Emma’s character and because I highly doubted that Snow and Charming would stop at one child.


	3. The First of the Meetings

After the meeting the night of the party, Emma's forays into the forest became more and more frequent.   
Whenever she had more than a few moments to herself, the oceans of green out the palace windows would call out to her. Sometimes she went on Bluebell, on occasion with her mother or Anna, but usually on her own. Dressed in one of her older dresses and without her shoes, she learned to love the soft dirt between her toes and the breeze whipping through her hastily unpinned braids. 

She would never quite admit, even to herself, that the hunter with the kind eyes was the reason for this.   
In the weeks following their encounter she pieced together the stories her mother and had told her about her time banished from the palace by her stepmother. Sent away into these very woods after her father had died and her stepmother had offered hollow words of comfort, the huntsman had been sent with her, with the express order to kill her. 

This confused Emma. The man had seemed kindly enough, even though his manner had infuriated her at first. Why had he been the one sent? The first time she saw him again, he didn't see her. She had been perched in a low, but secluded branch of a willow, when he came into the clearing below. She was poised ready to jump down when he turned and looked around, seemingly tracking something. She was suddenly overcome by an uncharacteristic shyness, and in her tree she stayed until after he had left the clearing.

She shook her head disgustedly when she came down again. She was afraid of almost nothing, not the empty parts of the castle like Anna or the woods in winter like some of the village girls, and certainly not a man who had never even spoken to her harshly. 

The second time he and his wolf sister had been staring across a bend in the stream with such intensity   
that neither noticed when Emma approached from behind on Bluebelle. 

"I hope you pay more attention when things might be chasing you" she said, grinning wryly. 

He spun around, decidedly surprised to be disturbed at all, much less by an actual person. His hand went directly to the bow behind his back, but he stopped when she saw her dismount and tie Bluebelle to a tree. 

"Relax" she said, approaching him calmly, betraying her heart which was thrumming in her ears, "I was just wondering how someone who doesn't seem to have much human contact would not only know who I was, but know so from meeting me at twilight in the middle of the woods, exactly once!". 

She's not sure he's going to answer at first. He almost looks as though he is going to flee once again.   
Then he quietly replies,

"You look just like your mother. You move like her too. She's probably told you the story, and if   
not..you're probably better off"

This time he didn't wait for her to turn away before retreating. She didn't call after him this time. And   
she wondered why she even bothered. 

But she did find him again, along that same stream, late in the summer before the start of her fourteenth   
year. 

He wasn't looking at her this time either. He was sitting on a flat rock by the waterline, tending to a   
wound on his right leg. She stands further back, not wanting to startle him.

"You don't have to run away every time I try and talk to you. I don't bite, I promise". 

Though he doesn't flee this time, even as she sits on the rock beside him he doesn't speak to her. 

The wound on his leg is about the size of her hand, mostly just abrased skin, but a few spots are bleeding openly. He's got a handful of leaves next to him, and is dabbing at the blood with an old rag. She grabs the rag, dips it into the water and wrings it out. 

"You need something to stop the bleeding" she tells him, no stranger herself to scrapes and cuts. 

He gestures to the leaves, curled greens with tinges of red. "Yourka greens. They should heal it up within a day or two". 

She removes the rag from his leg, and rinses it again in the stream. The blood is still flowing quite   
freely. "Don't you have anything to wrap it in until then?". 

He shakes his head, crushing the leaves and spreading them to the skin on his leg. The smell they created was quite strong, and Emma winces. The green mess seems to be stopping the pain, but the bleeding does not abate. 

"Here" she says, hastily tearing a section from bottom of her skirt. She wraps it around the wound, which now cleaned, really is not that large at all, though quite nasty looking. Once the dressing is tightly in place, she lets her hand linger on his calf. "That should do it."

He doesn't say anything, but he's looking at her strangely. And he doesn't move her hand away. 

"Why didn't you go into the village? Most of the people there could have helped you clean your leg- they would have probably even had real bandages. Ones that didn't have little flowers on them."

That actually gets him to smile. His eyes crinkle when he smiles, like Emma's father's did. But just as   
soon as it was there, his smile was gone. 

"Towns are no place for a man like me. Its best I not go among other humans". 

"A man like you?" she asks, confused at his assessment of himself. "You act like some kind of horrible   
beast. You don't seem to me to be any worse than an immature youth, what with the running off and not   
looking me in the eye most of the time."

His gaze had taken to a point deep in stream, decidedly not in her direction, and his silence maintained. 

"And there you go again, most would not find a lack of eye contact worthy of a banishing oneself so   
entirely from their fellow kind." 

At the point, his wolf sister is nudging her muzzle against Emma's feet. 

Her tone softens a bit. 

"You were right before, my mother did tell me the story. About how the Queen hired you to kill her,   
because she thought you were perfect for the job. She also said that you let her go. And that you helped   
her and father later on. Both of those go against your and the Queen's idea of who you are- what kind of monster would do that?"

By now his hand has reached down, and removed her hand from his leg. He doesn't let it go. 

"The kind that has no heart". 

She's not sure who left whom this time, but his hand holding hers lingers at that back of her mind for   
months. 

(His explanation does not satisfy her, but the conversation as to what exactly he means does not come   
until meeting thirteen). 

The next time they meet, he finds her, entirely by accident.

Well, her arrow finds him that is. 

"Sorry!" she yells, red in the face. 

He plucks the arrow out of the tree it has embedded itself in. 

"Should I worry that I have angered you somehow Princess". 

She becomes even redder "of course not. And call me Emma, not Princess. I'm just trying to practice". 

With him safely behind her, she takes another shot at the cross scratched onto a tree across the clearing.   
It sails straight past. 

"Practicing, and trying to figure out why I'm still so terrible". 

He watches her prepare another arrow, and draw. Her form is excellent. 

"Someone's taught you"

"My mother. For years. She says the bow kept her alive the years spent in the woods on her own. I can   
shoot fine when there's a parchment target set up, but out here..."

She fires again, and again, the arrows misses its mark. 

"Try again"

She looks at him quizzically. This is the most forward he has ever been in any of their conversations. She notches the next arrow, then releases it. 

Its there, he notes, the squint in her eyes when she lets the arrow fly.

"You can't quite see the mark you made can you?"

She seems surprised "should I be able to from here?"

"A little scratch made on a tree across this clearing is probably much more difficult to see than a   
painted target on the palace grounds"

She ducks her head, embarrassed. "My eyesight's never been very strong. I could read a book easily enough, but words on a slate-board, or a person coming from across a room I would miss all the time. Everyone else just thought I wasn't paying attention". 

"Out here hitting a stationary target isn't likely to come up much" He points to a squirrel by a tree,   
"out here, its mostly about learning to predict movements, and shooting where something will be, not where it is".

Emma watches the creature, darting about the branches. She notches ber bow again, takes aim, and just when she thinks she can see the twitch of its tail about to sprint down its way, she adjusts and fires. 

Bullseye. Straight through the skull. 

The Huntsman smiles, "See? Nature does not account for weaknesses. Its up to you to compensate..."

He trails off when he catches a glimpse of Emma's face, white as a sheet, her hands clasped over her   
mouth.

She's not sure what to call the look that passes over his face. Pity? Condescendation? Possibly empathy?

He plucks the arrow out of the corpse and returns it to her. "He will make a fine stew tonight. You would never kill a something out of bloodlust, or just because you could, this much I know for sure."

He touches her shoulder when he says this, and as tumultuous as Emma's stomach has become, here, she believes him. 

"His sacrifice will help me and my family continue on another day."

Emma quickly gathers her things and leaves the clearing without another word. She still cannot understand. 

How his touch could be so clear, but his face say absolutely nothing.


	4. The Heart and the Hearts

If Emma was curious about the Huntsman before the incident with her bow, afterwards she's borderline obsessed. Whereas she'd been used to spending her free time in the forest, she now finds her thoughts of him spilling into her mind in moments nearly anywhere and anytime. 

This has led to more than a few mortifying moments for her. Notably when she became distracted by a carving of a wolf on one of the dishes at the supper table, and becomes so lost in thought that she completely ignores a question from her mother until she repeats it a third time, and Anna kicks her under table. 

Her face turns red as a beet, and Anna starts giggling and she just wants to die then and there.

"I was saying Emma, that Gepetto and Pinocchio's sent a letter saying the troop they are with should be coming through this part of the kingdom early next spring, and I suggested that you and Anna might help them out when they get here. Pinocchio's just been married and they took upon another fiddler and will need more hands to get things ready" 

She's nodding and agreeing, and excited really, but all through she finds her mind drifting back to the forest. 

Anna ferrets it out of her when they're on their way upstairs to bed later

"It'll be nice seeing Pinocchio again, they haven't made it back here in so long". 

"Still want to see him even though he married someone other than you?" Emma remarks slyly. 

Seeing Anna's usually dignified face pucker and sputter is well worth it. 

"I was five! I didn't mean it!" 

"Well you sure seemed sad when he left that year!" 

"You aren't one to talk, what with you running off into the woods all the time. Who are you meeting anyway? Not one of the boys from the village I hope"

Emma laughs genuinely. Most of the boys living in the village don't know their boots from holes in the ground, much less knowing either from girls. 

"No, its not..its...he's older than both of us"

"Really, Emma, running with strange older men, Mother and Father are already worried enough about you, don't give them more reason to".

"Its not like that Anna." She swears its not, even though she's beginning to think it is. "I just like   
talking to him is all, when he doesn't run away." 

"Maybe its a good idea Mother suggested having the ball for your birthday, so you can meet someone normal"   
Anna finishes. 

Anna would think that a good idea, but Emma has been dreading it. She has no interest in pageantry, or the princes and lord's sons. Of course, Mother and Father would never force her to marry, but they insist that at nearly sixteen, she should at least give it some thought, and take the time to meet people. A ball, with its finicky dress, stiff manners and boring conversation, and that she wont be able to escape this time, at this moment sounds like her worse nightmare. 

She's not wrong. The night of the ball, when attempting to make her entrance down the grand staircase in her fluffy, itchy white dress, she takes the second to last step hastily and proceeds to topple flat on her face. 

She'd really rather pretend that whole night never happened.

That autumn, she finds him and he finds her far more often. It becomes almost predictable to find him seated at the mouth of a stream, or her on a low lying branch, or either of them in a meadow that could be reached by walking barely a half hour from the castle. 

He still behaves oddly towards her sometimes, but he doesn't run anymore. And for the first time in her life, Emma feels like she has someone she could tell anything. 

Anna was both young and judgmental. Mother could be maddeningly understanding and optimistic. And talking to Father hadn't been easy for Emma since she was a young girl. He just seemed to be on such a different world than the one she inhabited.

But this man, this wild man, who lives amongst the animals, seemingly untouched by the passage of time, does something no one else has been able to do for Emma. 

He listens, and she believes that he truly hears her. 

And so that year, she spills her guts to him. 

She tells him about her family, her extended family. About Gepetto and Pinocchio, and godmother Red, and the last knight of the round table. She told him how awful she felt. That she never seemed to be able to do the things she was supposed to do, and the things she was good at weren't deemed important. She told him how terrified she was that she would disappoint her family, and how she rarely felt as if her place in the world was truly her place. 

One memorable day, he finds her curled over on a log, her face a blotchy, tear stained mess. 

Her horse had died that morning. 

"Bluebelle's been mine since I could sit up in the saddle. Mother said she probably should have had me pick a younger animal, so maybe I would have grown all the way up before this, but we always seemed to be so perfect with each other. Some of the mares will foal this spring, and Mother says I should pick a new steed then, but it wont be the same."

And this is something he can understand. 

"The wolves that found and raised me have been gone for many years. Wild wolves rarely live past ten even though they can. Its a dangerous life. There aren't much in the way of large predators here, and since your parents banned hunting us, its gotten easier. But there's still hunger, and danger, and wolves are territorial. I've lost many brothers and sisters over the years. There's nothing like it, and there is no way to replace any of them." 

She's come to rest her head on his shoulder at this point, and he lets her. 

"How old were you when..."

"The ones I call my parents? Just a little younger than you. Shot by a hunter. That winter was hard for all"

She cannot conceive of losing either of her parents. Despite their difficulties, they were immovable objects to her. 

She presses her cheek more firmly to the soft skin of his neck. "I can't even imagine, that must have been awful." 

A glance upwards reveals something that startles her. His eyes are wet and red, much like her own. She jerks upward to look him straight in the face. 

"You're crying....I've never seen you cry, you've barely even smiled in front of me" .

She reaches out and touches the damp streaks forming on his cheeks. He doesn't seem to know what to say again. and his face remains blank, but the tears are unmistakeable. 

"You told me once you thought yourself heartless. What kind of heartless person would cry over a death so long past?"

He chokes a bit before answering. "I didn't say I was heartless. I said I have no heart. I meant that. When I let your mother go in the forest that day, the Queen saw through my betrayal in a moment. She did not take it lightly, and as punishment, she pulled out my heart"

Emma's eyes bulge with shock "pulled out like...out of your chest"

He nods. "Ever since that day, I haven't felt anything. Not sadness, not joy, nor anger. Nothing. The whole of my life has felt like a void, like my body thinks its hungry, but nothing will satify it"

She's silent for a moment. Contemplative. Lets her fingers linger on the coarse hair on his chin.

"Nothing? You claim you feel nothing. But you're crying. And you've smiled and laughed at me before, however inappropriately. You really can't feel anything?"

His throat lets out a strangled chuckle. "You. Its you. No other human has even caused a flicker. My brothers and sisters are mere companions now. But when I'm around you, I feel things again."

She's gaping by this point. Mouth hanging open, lips trying to form words but nothing will come out. "I...I'm sorry I make you cry"

He laughs, genuinely this time. "Its good. After all this time, even sadness is worth it". 

Emma herself, is overcome by emotion at this point. Bewilderment, a little fear. Tenderness, sympathy for the man in front of her, joy that she is of some use to someone, anger on his behalf, all tempering the sadness that brought her out here today in the first place. In a rush, she wraps her arms tightly around him, nestling her face in the crook of his neck.

"If I'm the only thing that makes you feel, I should at least make you feel good things!"

After a long moment of being stiff in her arms, Emma feels him soften, wrapping his around her as well. 

\--------------

The ice and snow have begun to thaw, the world below has begun to reemerge. and Emma has begun to go stir crazy. 

Long days trapped in the cold, stone walls of the castle have made her jittery and short tempered. She. as well as the rest of the family, are not sure how much more they could handle. 

Thankfully, the early arrival of Pinocchio and the rest of the troupe have lightened the mood   
considerably. As jovial as ever, though it had been years, Pinocchio greeted Emma and Anna as though they were still as close as ever. And the nights, the entire group around the huge fireplace, telling stories late past dusk, were winter evenings at their best. 

Pinocchio's bride, a tall, rosy cheeked woman with a bright smile and bounding laugh, had traveled farther and wider than either of the girls could have imagined, and in fact, claimed that there were other worlds than this. 

"Alice, you can't honestly expect us to believe that not only is there a whole world where you can shrink and grow many times in one day, but that you got there through a looking-glass!" Emma exclaimed, incredulous, but thoroughly enraptured. 

"Indeed, though truly its not as wonderful a place as it may seem" Alice says, unwrapping her headscarf from around her dark curls, showing everyone the enchanted image of the dance known as the Lobster Quadrille.

"And though I may not have found what I went there for" she continues quietly, to no one in particular. 

Setting up for the group's performance takes up most of the late winter days, and trapped as she still feels, Emma thrives with the activity. 

Its a rare happenstance, that day in the castle depths, searching for a tapestry the troupe wanted to use as a backdrop and their mother remembered stowed away, that Anna and Emma stumble upon the room that will shape the rest of Emma's life. 

"There's so many passageways down here, how are we supposed to find anything, much less find our way back out when we're done?" Anna complained as she followed behind her sister. 

"Don't be a baby, I've been down here before" Emma dismissed, and she had explored down in the chambers as a child, but she wouldn't admit, never this far. 

"Wait, there's something up here" Emma switches hands with her torch as the two girls makes it into the room at the end of their corridor. Its huge, and cold, and not anywhere Emma could remember being before.

"What...is that" Emma turns to to see what Anna is talking about. 

Along one wall, is a huge fixture made up of small drawers. Emma is drawn to one, and begins to pull it open. 

"Emma, no, we don't know what's down here, Mother and Father never come here even, it could be anything!" But its too late. 

Emma has removed the drawer from its compartment, and is gazing at its content. Anna has come closer, and is similarly transfixed. 

Neither have actually seen one before, and both know it shouldn't be glowing, or in a box for that matter. But even based on crude drawings in lesson books, there is no mistaking that the item held within the wooden confines, is a human heart. 

Anna gasps a protest when Emma reaches in to touch it. Emma doesn't listen. 

When she wraps her hand around the dark crimson structure, the whole thing begins to glow, and Emma is overcome by an image. 

A cottage next to a river. Trees all around, and a large garden full of flowers of every color. There's a little girl in the garden, staring off into the distance. This girl had a plan, but she must not be allowed to go, for she is a dreamer...

"EMMA" 

The trance is broken by Anna shaking her shoulder roughly.

"Emma, put the drawer back, lets go back upstairs and pretend we never found this place, tell everyone we couldn't find the tapestry..."

The trance is broken, but the image is stuck. Emma walks away from her sister without a glace, and out the corridor they came in. 

"Emma, where are you going, EMMA!" 

Hardly a moment seems to past as Emma makes her way out of the castle, avoiding her family and any servants or guards she may meet. Before she realizes anything, she is saddling a horse and on her way down the path past the village and into the valley in the west. 

For the first time in her life, Princess Emma knows exactly where she is going, and what she is doing.


	5. The Cottage by the River

This part of the kingdom is lush during the best times of the year, full of blooming orchards and farms producing bounties that made their way to far ends of the lands. During this time of year, even under the blaze of the winter sun it is both cold and barren, most trees still rain slicked, black and bare, fields empty. 

The sun has begun to set, and Emma's thighs have begun to ache. Not even half a day's journey and she believes she has found what she has found. 

Even in the bleak center of a late winter orchard, the little cottage had its own sort of light. The trees were free of blossoms or fruit, and the garden mostly asleep for the season. The roof was thatched, as was the custom in much of the area. The windows though, were made of actual glass, colored glass even. The dimming sun caught these, and the rapids of the nearby river, and set the whole clearing aglow, as if by magic. 

Emma dismounted, and tied her mount to the nearest tree. She removes the box from the saddlebag and approaches the door. 

Emma is apprehensive. She's not sure what to expect. She knows what she saw, but even as her fist raises to knock on the door, her own heart almost catches in her throat. 

The same girl she saw answers the door. Her hair is golden, tied in plaits, and her dress plain but well kept. Her eyes are as blank as Emma remembers, steady and unchanging. 

"Gerda, who is it?" a voice from behind the girl booms. 

"Its a girl Mum!"

"Well have her in, its going to be dark soon!"

An old woman leaning on a walking stick pushes Gerda aside, and leads Emma in. Everything in the cottage is simple, but pretty. The small wooden table is carved with flowers, and the quilts on the two beds in the corner are colorful. The woman hurries Gerda out into garden 

Sitting down at the table, Emma gets her first good look at the woman. She is quite strong appearing despite her advancing age, and her voice is even and soothing. Again, her eyes are what Emma focuses on. They are not blank like Gerda's. Rather they are almost cold appearing. Icy and calculating. 

"Now tell me dear, what is a girl like you doing in our little corner of the world all alone?"

"I.." Emma pauses, choosing her words carefully. "I'm seeking something. I have something I believe belongs to another and I wish to return it". 

The old woman gets a faraway look in her eye. "Little Gerda came here to me on a journey of her own. But she learned better. The world and the people in it will only disappoint her, and what she wished to find would have only spit back in her face"

Emma steels herself. She places the wooden box on the tabletop. "Ma'am...if would look at this...I think it may belong to you."

The old woman looks at her queerly as she opens the box. The glowing organ lights up the room, and something lights up the woman's face. 

Her fingers touch it gingerly, hesitantly. When she finally picks it up, the whole room is momentarily awash with a bright light. 

When the light fades, the heart is gone, and the woman collapses to her knees. 

"Thank you" She trembles "thank you my dear child. I have been without my heart for far too long, I've done too many things..."

The tears start to well up, and Emma is speechless for a moment, before she tries.

"Gerda...Gerda didn't want to stay here did she? You made her"

The woman's eyes become downcast. "Gerda came to me after drifting downriver from her home. She was searching for a lost friend. He had been cruel to her before he disappeared, and she was so certain that he had to have had something awful happened to him, and wouldn't leave until..."

The woman pauses, more and more overwhelmed by the words she is having to say. 

"I wanted her to stay. I've always wanted a child of my own so badly. I was so certain that she would only be hurt by what she found. So yes, I made her stay."

She reaches out and takes Emma's hands in her own. 

"Not anymore. I'll release the charm I have on her tonight, and the both of you shall leave in the morning". Emma's mouth gapes for a moment "Don't argue, you're staying for the night, you've obviously have a long way ahead of you". 

Emma it turns out, is indeed exhausted, and can't say no to the steaming hot stew the old woman is serving up.

She brings Gerda in from the cold, and has her sit at the table. Emma watches as the woman plucks a dried rose from a cupboard above her cookstove, and presents it to her. 

"You took such care tending these in my garden this summer Gerda. Take this, and tell me what it makes you think of"

The girl grasps the flower's stem in her hands. As she does, it seems almost to come alive again, as full and fresh as it would have been when in bloom. Her face does as well.

"We grew roses outside our house where I grew up. Whole bushes under the kitchen window, and across the walkway. Red and pink and yellow and white, and they smelled so, so good. Keeping them up was my job, me and...."

She falters, cheeks aglow and eyes filled to the brim with tears. 

"Me, and, me and Kai. Oh god, how could I have forgotten Kai?"

There is much crying that night, and hugging. Despite having been enchanted, Gerda still seems grateful for the old woman taking her in.

When they're smushed together in Gerda's little bed in the corner later that night as the moon begins to rise, Emma learns that Gerda is also quite a talker. 

She goes on about the city where she's from, far down the river. The houses there, she says, are large, holding several families. These houses are packed so tightly together that the only thing that can fit between them were flowers. Gerda talks animatedly about these flowers, the orchids and daisies and sunflowers as tall as she. And the roses, in every color. The roses were her favorite, and she said,   
Kai's as well. 

She speaks animatedly about Kai as well, calls him her very best friend, and about how she couldn't bear stay with the old woman in her lovely home if she knew he was still out there without her. 

"Do you love him?" Emma asks quietly, during a rare lull in the girl's speech.

Gerda giggles "of course I love him". 

Emma bites her lip, a bit unsure of how to put this. "No, I mean...not friend-love. When you find him again" she doesn't dare say "if", "Do you want to marry him someday? Have a family of your own?". 

Gerda tilts her head thoughtfully. "I never really thought about it. I know that knowing he might be in danger makes my stomach go cold. I know that even living one house away felt like too far sometimes. I know that I can't picture my life without him in it. So maybe yes, I think I do love him."

"Do you think he loves you back?"

Gerda looks saddened again. "I used to be certain he did. Then one day, he turned mean, for no reason at all, he laughed at me and made fun of things we used to enjoy. He trampled one of my new flower buds. I never understood what happened, and then he disappeared. That's why I have to find him, this isn't Kai, I know something had to have been done to him to turn him so cruel"

"Do you think that maybe he was...heartless, like the old woman was?"

Gerda considers it "I really don't think so, Kai was just a child. Who could have wanted to pull out his heart? And he didn't even act like himself anymore, not even a shadow of himself. There's a legend where I'm from...of a cursed mirror that shattered. Shards could work there way into a person's heart, and poison it with resentment and cynicism. I wonder if that might have been...."

A yawn followed, all that talking must have exhausted Gerda, and she drifted off. Emma lay awake a little while longer, staring out one of the glass windows into the deep blue of the night, the haze of the moon. She shut her eyes, and swore that off in the distance, she could hear a wolf howl. 

The next morning, bright and early, Emma and Gerda climb on her horse and head back towards home. When they reach a trading crossroads, Emma lets Gerda off to head her own way.

"Do you know where you should be going?"

"I floated down river a fair ways. I think I'll try and head for the Snow Queen's palace. All roads here seem to lead that way". 

So she leaves the girl, and heads west towards home. As the sun reaches the middle of the sky and the terrain becomes more familiar, Emma feels a catch in her stomach. The old woman was just one heart in that whole wall. There were dozens more like her, heartless and empty. 

I'll help them all, Emma thinks, I'll find them all and give them their hearts back, whether they act like they need it or not. 

This thought emboldens her with a strength she has never before felt as she approached the palace grounds, the familiar paths and gardens. 

Her family are gathered by the stables, and the wistfulness that grips her is so strong it almost dismounts her. Her heart swells with love for all of them, and she is so overjoyed that after dismount she almost bursts. 

That is, until the yelling starts.

*****

Its the height of spring before Emma feels at all comfortable approaching either of her parents about the rest of the hearts in the vault. The yelling that had heralded her return had hurt badly enough. The hugs were almost as bad. The guilt and shame outstripped them both. Everything she tried ended in ruin, from her complete inability to use her brain. She had run off from her home without a single   
word, and was gone a whole day. No one had had any idea what had happened to her, Anna confused and her parents completely distraught. The yelling had ended quickly but the looks of disappointment hadn't. Emma had hardly left the castle in the month that had passed since then, lacking the energy to even run across the meadow. If she had stopped to think for just one second...

She sat on her bed, hair hanging loosely around her shoulders, dressed in a soft, floaty green dress. The preparations for the Rite of Spring were going on in the village below. The yearly celebration of the return of the sunshine and flowers was usually one of her favorite things, but even the wafting odor of freshly roasted meats couldn't arouse her spirits. 

She was in this position still when her mother came in. 

"Emma aren't you ready yet, the bonfire will be lit in an hour!"

Emma looks up at her mother, dressed in her own spring finery, the beautiful and strong queen who had done so much good and had so many adventures, and found herself starting to cry. 

Snow is shocked, Emma having rarely been weepy even as a child, and sits beside her on the bed placing one hand on Emma's shoulder, brushing her hair away. 

"Oh mother," Emma says through her sobs, everything spilling from her that she had never been able to say or admit, "I just want you and father to be proud of me, but everything I do, I screw up. I can't be the perfect, gracious princess, or the wise future ruler. I can't even walk down a flight of stairs without falling on my face. When I held that heart in my hands the day I left, I was sure. I was so sure that what I was doing what absolutely right and had to be done. But I still found some way to ruin that". 

Snow quietly reaches over to the bureau and picks up Emma's hairbrush, combing her long curls slowly. 

"When I was young, before I met your father, I came to a village paralyzed in terror by a monster. That was when I met your godmother Red. I tried so hard to help her, I was so certain that what we were doing was right, and would make everything good again. I was wrong, and something awful happened. A boy died, and Red should have never forgiven me, but she did. Bad things happen no matter your intentions. Your father and I were upset when you returned because you terrified us. We thought something had happened to you, and that we would never know why. We stayed angry because we thought you needed to understand the pain you had put us through. But nothing bad happened because of it, and the story you told about the heart shows that something good did come of it. We love you Emma, no matter what it is you grow up to be. We've known for a long time that you probably weren't suited for the royal life, and that's perfectly fine. Just don't forget about us"

Emma's curls are smooth now, and her tears have dried. Snow has taken to braiding near the crown of her head, and wrapping the endings into her green hair ribbons. The ends of her braids are looped around her head, like a grown woman would wear. 

"I told you years ago, little bird, you can't trap something you love. You can't hold it captive. If it needs to be free, you have to let it. If it truly loves you, it will know its home, and it will always come back to you." 

She pats Emma's shoulder again, and gets up to leave. 

"Now don't stay up here all night, or you'll miss all the fun. Guilt is no reason to miss out on something you love"

By the time Emma makes it down to the courtyard, she is brimming with energy. Every bit of her body feels newly alive.And this night, beginning with the lighting of the bonfire, to remain lit until the sun itself outshines it, feels only appropriate. The village girls, freed of the imprisonment of their heavy winter loves, flutter around the ribboned May poles, catching the eyes of the boys, taller than they were when last seen. She spies more than one sneaking off into the shadows outside the yard, spring being a time of growth and multiplication of more than one kind. 

Even after she has danced her heart out, and eaten her fill of the festive spread, her cheeks aglow and feet hot from moving almost of their own accord, she still feels as though something is missing. A quiet howl awakens her mind. 

She finds Anna, sitting down and watching the others of course, and tells her. 

"I'll be back soon, and don't go telling on me, I wont go far". 

She knows she'll find him by the stream again, she's not sure how. 

He's sitting on a rock this time, and she sneaks up and sits beside him. 

"You could come down to the celebration you know. Lots of drink going around, no one will notice one man in animal pelts."

"I've said before, I shouldn't go among normal people"

"Because you have no heart, yes I remember quite well, and I've told you before, that hasn't made you into some horrible beast" 

She's reached out to touch his hand. "What if I told you there was a chance that you wouldn't spend the rest of your life heartless?"

He's staring at her, seemingly entranced by the feel of her skin. 

"I think I found where my grandmother kept her stolen hearts. Who would have ever know that there were so many people who could have angered her so greatly? I returned one already. Made a bit of a mess of it, true, but the owner is whole again."

She presses herself forward to press her forehead against his, more and more of her body feeling alive. 

"Yours has to be in there somewhere. And I will find it. I have to return all the others. Have to. It may be the only good thing I can do for others in this world. It may take years, but I will return them all and that includes yours. I don't know when I will be able to find it, but take me at my word nameless Huntsman, one day I will be able to place it back in your chest, look you in the eye and see the man you were born, and know that you may feel for the whole world again, but you felt for me first"

His face is so close to hers she can feel his breath against her lips. Seized by boldness, she presses her hands onto both sides of his face and kisses him swiftly. He tastes of greenery. 

She pulls back, breathing hard. 

"And that's a promise".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those not in the know, Gerda and the old woman are from Hans Christian Andersen's tale The Snow Queen. Its one of my favorites.


	6. The Four Gifts

The Four Gifts

Emma gathers her wits about her this time. She wont let herself be overcome and taken away. This is a quest, and one that requires preparation. 

The first thing she does is take her mother down to the vault, to help her mark the route. 

Snow's eyes widen in shock 

"I had heard stories, that Regina's preferred punishment was something like this, but I never had any actual proof...."

"Where should I even start?" Emma asks. The wall now seems insurmountably large. Row after row, far above her head, and encircling the entire room. 

"Pick a box" Snow says, "and we'll go from there". 

Emma takes a deep breath, reaches out and pulls the door on the box closest to her. Experimentally, she also grasps the handle on the box next to it, but it wont budge. 

"I guess its just one at a time then."

She opens the box, the heart inside much the same as the one from before. Again, though more gingerly now, she takes it in her hands. 

The images this time are just as vivid, but not as familiar. A forest, foliage the likes of which Emma has never seen. Snow on the ground still, nary a dwelling in sight. What sky she can see is the color of the last of a fire's embers. She's wondering who this particular vision must be of, when the ground beneath her shakes and shudders in a decidedly unnatural manner. She hears a cackle, sees three blurs, white, red and black in the corners of her eyes, and smells a sickeningly sweet odor on the air, one that ought not be worrying, but a sick cold feeling is coming over her stomach....

"EMMA". 

Snow shakes her out of her daze, swiftly capturing the heart back in its container and removing it from Emma's hands.

Emma blinks her eyes several times, reorientating herself. She stumbles, the world spinning around her, and reaches out to press her hand to the vault to steady herself. 

"This one's not from near here, I don't recognize any of the flora. And its cold" 

"I'll have Johanna bring up the books on other lands, and your father will gather accounts of everywhere Regina had traveled or had influences."

Emma hugs herself gingerly.

"I don't even know who it is this time. I didn't hear any thoughts, all I saw was the forest and there was this..."

"Emma" Snow stops her "Do you still think its important to do this?"

Her resolves steels again "Yes. More important than anything". 

"Then you'll do it. And we'll do what we can to help you." 

******************

The marks on the map pile up. Above the line, the only areas where there would still be any snow, below a second line, the areas that would still be covered. Scratched off areas that weren't forested. 

Emma presses her forehead against the tabletop in frustration. No one in these books could describe something simply. And the curly, cramped writing on aged pages is making her head ache. 

"Em"

She raises her head again. Her father is looking at her from across the table. 

"Emma, focus. Go through what you saw again. Are you SURE there isn't anything else that might help, even something small?"

And so again, she squeezes her eyes shut. She sees the forest again, and smells the sweet smoke, and the sky....

"The sky...it's very dark, like it is close to sundown. But it doesn't feel late to me, it feels like midday like it was here. " 

Her father nods, and circles an area off in the north.

"The Lovakj peninsula. Its well known that except in brightest summer, it is terribly cold, and travelers have told tales in recent years of extreme darkness even in the longest days of the year". 

Emma nods "A collection of loosely connected dukedoms under the power of a Tsar" Her father looks impressed "I paid attention in lessons on occasion" 

Her father pauses, and moves to dig about in one of the nearby chests. He pulls out a satchel. 

"I've kept this for many years. When I was young, the family who lived nearest to us were miners. They had a boy my age, and we were very close. Eventually we went our separate ways of course, but I discovered years later, that our fates were more alike than I could have thought. He too, a miner as common as a shepherd, fell in love with a princess from another land and married her. They too had a great many adventures, and he gave me this token of them". 

What he pulls from the satchel first to Emma just looks like an ordinary string. But at second glance, she sees. Its made of the purest, thinnest gold she has ever seen. And parts of it appear to spiral and twist and almost completely disappear. 

"This thread was woven by an elderly enchantress of great power, and great wisdom. Tie one end to something important, and carry the other, and you will always be able to find your way home. It will never tangle, or break, or run out. And it will never be seen, except by the holder". 

Emma is shocked by the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. "Father, you must know, I will of course come back!" 

Her father smiles, and shakes his head. "I would never doubt that that is your intent Emma, but I'd prefer the truth not be held to the test of your navigational skills".

She has to laugh. He's not wrong.

And just like that, the first leg of her journey has a starting point. The ride will take several weeks, and the weather has begun to warm. Emma spends her days pouring over every book, every written account of the peninsula, its land, its people, its traditions. As difficult as reading has always been for her, Emma is glad for it now. 

She prepares her things. A few frocks, sturdy and good for the weather, plain enough to not call attention. Maps, copied painstakingly from books. A water skein. The golden thread. Food for a few days, and enough coin to trade for more and shelter, all packed in a plain saddlebag. The box with the heart, wrapped in a blanket tucked in deep.

Snow helps her select her steed. Her choice, Dandelion, a stout, golden creature with a decidedly sedate look in her eyes. 

"She may not look like much, but she'll hold you true, and she won't weaken". 

There is something else. Dandelion's dull demeanor will aid in keeping would be bandits from seeing her as a valuable find. A young woman traveling alone may not be as unusual as it once was, but she still has more than a few dangers to face. 

This is why, after dinner one day, Snow takes Emma aside, leading her to the shed in the courtyard. 

She removes a parcel, wrapped in oilcloth, and presents it to Emma. 

"I want you to take these with you, though I hope you never have to use them against anyone". 

Emma unwraps the cloth and immediately recognizes the the smooth, flexible wood. She was taught with these, used them many a time in this very field and forest. Her mother's bow, and quiver full of arrows. 

She's overwhelmed "But these are..."

Snow smiles "Don't really have much call to use them as Queen anymore. I've taught you to use them as well as I can, and I won't leave you defenseless, if I can't be with you, then this will have to. And also," She removes a small dagger from another fold in the cloth, "Just in case someone gets too close". 

Emma holds the gift tightly in her arms, "I'll take good care of them, and make sure to bring them back to you". 

Snow impulsively wraps Emma in a hug. "They're just wood and string. I'd much rather you make sure you bring yourself home". 

With her face pressed into her mother's shoulder, Emma squeaks out "This probably isn't what you wanted for me, I'm sure you'd wished I'd been like Anna, good and smart, someone who you could raise to be Queen one day, but I'm so happy that you understand" 

Snow shakes her head with a smile on her face. "Your sister may be good at lessons and etiquette, but she has more than a few lessons coming on how to treat people, and many years to go before she would even be close to wise enough to be Queen. And I'm not exactly an autumn flower yet, and I don't plan on letting the position go anytime soon!". 

She whispers closer to her ear, "You've had the fire in you even as a child, its time for you to find your own place in the world". 

This, rather than the bow, is truly the gift from her mother Emma carries. 

It's the hottest week of the year. The golden sunlight that first bathed and revived the land is now baking it, drawing the energy out it. Emma has mostly finished her preparations and spends her days in the stone cellars, under shady trees, swimming in the streams, anything in an attempt to dam the onslaught of the oppressive heat. 

Pinocchio and the traveling show are coming through again that night. It's been part of Emma's plan, hitch a ride alongside the caravan as they head north, then split when they reach a fortuitous fork in the road. 

Emma is packing and prepping Dandelion with the other horses in the caravan, when Pinocchio’s young wife approaches her. 

"Emma" she says, "I have a favor to ask of you"

"What is it Alice?" Emma can not even guess at the what the other woman would want from her. 

"I know you said you have specific plans about this trip, but I know from experience that these kinds of quests can get out of hand. Sometimes you end up somewhere you entirely did not expect. Look just...please take this with you."

She hands Emma a portrait. The face on the picture is of a man, with wild hair, holding an elaborate hat. The name scrawled below it reads "Jefferson". 

"I've spent my whole adult life searching for my father. I'm happy with the life I lead now, staying on one world, but I can't rest knowing he's out there somewhere and doesn't know what has happened to me. He promised he would be back for tea." She's crying now "Just...please keep your eyes open. If you find him, no matter where, just tell him I'm alive and happy. I don't use the name he gave me anymore, but that doesn't mean I don't love him."

She wipes away her tears. She's holding something else too. "Take this too. You're at your most vulnerable when you're asleep while traveling. Cover up with this, and while you won't be truly invisible, no passerby will be able to see you". She hands Emma an expanse of strange, thin cloth. 

Emma finally finds the words to thank her, and tucks both items into her satchel before asking, 

"If you're name isn't really Alice, what is it?"

She looks around before whispering "Grace. Don't tell anyone, even Pinocchio doesn't know. I got into some trouble in another land when I got between a group of feuding witches as a teenager, and I think it best they don't find me". 

"I understand" And Emma seals her lips. 

The rest of the evening seems almost a blur. Everyone from the caravan is invited in for supper, which is sumptuous and jovial, everyone getting their fill of good food and good conversation. 

That night, Emma prepares her things, loads up all she can, and then takes her mother's advice and heads to bed. But she is restless, twitching inside her very skin. 

After a few hour of tossing and turning, she throws the quilts off herself. Even in just the sheet, she's too hot and too buzzed to sleep. 

She climbs out of her bed, and unlatches her window. There's a line of vines that climb the wall of the palace to the right. They are remarkably rope like, and easy to grip. Her window locks from the inside, and since she's never snuck out at night before, she really does not fear anyone discovering her descent. 

Though the vine DOES tangle around her feet a yard or so above the ground, and she DOES take an undignified tumble into the gardener's beautiful yellow roses. 

The heat has managed to break at this point of night, though still at the height of summer, the air is not quite so thick. The moon is huge in the sky, a true strawberry moon. Emma does not even shiver in her thin nightdress and bare feet. 

The entire forest is lush, everything at the peak of fruit and flower. Emma is intoxicated by the smell of the leaves, the feel of the soft grass under her feet. She plucks a ripe fruit from a low lying branch and bites into it, the juice smearing on her face, cool on her lips, tangy on her tongue. The moon is peaking through the branches casts its light upon everything, bright almost as day. 

She reaches the pond, moonlight reflection on the still, smooth surface of the water. Perching herself on a rock, she slips her toes, then heels, then her entire feet into the lake. The water is cool, but not chilling, and it feels good on her skin. She has a fleeting impulse to strip off her nightgown and dive in, but before she even has a chance to entertain the thought, a cracking branch makes her ears twitch.

Her tension only lasts a second, until she recognizes the pattern of soft footsteps. 

"Please don't sneak" she says as the Huntsman's form emerges from the trees near the shore. "Young maidens out at night might be frightened."

He lays his pack down and sits beside her on the rock. "Maidens out this late are unlikely to be frightened by much".

Emma tries to fix him with an icy glare, but a shock of giddiness pulses through her, and it transforms into a gleeful grin. A giggle escapes her, and she covers her mouth. 

"Sorry". 

He smiles fondly, and she wonders how strange it must be to only be able to do that rarely. 

"So why exactly is the maiden out at night, might I ask?"

Emma splashes her feet in the surface of the water, making it ripple. "Couldn't sleep. Leaving in the morning, and I guess I should be scared, or nervous or something, but I'm just..."

Her eyes glance at him. Its so hot, that he's not wearing his usual pelts. His shirt is so thin and torn he might as well not be wearing it at all. 

She bites her lip. "...excited". She hopes the dark of the night hides the blush on her cheeks. Her next words practically race out of her mouth, in an attempt to keep the tempting, distracting thoughts from her mind. 

"I mean, it seems my whole life like I've never known why I was here. Why I was born who I was. I've never had purpose. I was never going to be a good Queen. I've never been good at the things I was supposed to be. I think I could be good at this. Helping that old woman in the valley? Her and Gerda were so happy when it was done. They were happy, because of something I had done right!" 

Her voice is swelling, as is her heart. "I think, if people write anything about me in those boring old histories we read in lessons, it will be about this. This will be what the world will remember me by, I hope." 

He's looking at her, oddly vulnerable. His looks makes her feel self conscious, exposed. 

"Be careful Emma, the world can be an ugly place, and I don't want anything to happen to you". 

She curls her lips. "When I was a child, my mother called me Little Bird, because I loved watching the ones that nested in the castle turrets. Even when they learned to fly, and gained their freedom, they'd always return to the nest" 

She splashes her legs some more, "I've wanted to get out into the world, to make my own path, for so long. I want to see what all the people of the world have to offer. But no part of me has ever thought of not returning home. There is nothing out there, magical, or otherwise, that could stop me from returning, to the castle and its grounds, and this forest and Mother and Father and Anna..."

She pokes him in the chest "And you too. Besides, you yourself should know that I'm skilled with a bow". 

His mouth quietly shapes itself into a soft smirk "That I do"

He removes an object from his pocket, a wooden thing on a string. He drapes the string over her neck, and she touches the object, a hollow wooden tube with a couple of holes carved into it. 

"It's a whistle" he says, hand resting on her neck, fingering the small opening on the end. 

"I'm not much of a musician" she fumbles for a explanation.

"It's not meant to make music," he says, smiling, "It produces a pitch that humans can hardly hear. But, wolves and dogs can, very well. If you're ever in trouble, just blow" 

She wraps her fingers around it, touched. "So I suppose blowing it now would just make them all annoyed with me?" 

He laughs. It's a lovely sound. What it does to his face is lovely too. Before Emma knows it, she's smiling too.

She carefully leans over to embrace him. 

"Thank you"

She allows that to excuse her lingering. It definitely isn't her memorizing the smell of his skin, or the feel of his stubble on her neck. 

There's a moment where a current rushes through Emma. She stiffens, and feels him stiffen in return. She pulls back, and looks down at her feet. 

"I guess we should both go our ways for tonight" Her voice feels thick, and her skin, already warm, is now blazing. 

He pauses, then returns "I will see you again when you return then. I'll be counting the days"

She looks back to smile at him. His own face is tinged pink, making her less self conscious of her own reddened cheeks. 

"Thank you again. For the whistle. And for everything else". 

She lingers back by the water long after he has retreated. The blush has faded from her cheeks, but the warmth in her belly (and between her thighs) has remained. She breathes in and out slowly, hoping to regain her center. Indeed, she is almost shocked by the intense calm that pervades her. 

The moon is drifting closer to the horizon. She should return to the palace soon if she wants not to alert anyone to her escapade. 

A gentle breeze wafts against her, and Emma is seized by a powerfully consuming thought.

"Fortune favors the brave after all" is her justification, as she peels her nightgown over her head. Emma tosses the garment aside, night air refreshing on her bare skin, raises her arms and plunges off the rock into the smooth surface of the moonlight shining water.


	7. The Old Witch of the North

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heavily based on the classic Russian fairy tale "Vasilisa the Fair". I read it in Maria Tater's excellent "The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales" which I recommend to any OUAT fan

Emma hates the cold. She really, really hates it. On Dandelion's back, she wraps herself tighter and tighter in her coat and scarf, and muses that she wishes her first quest away from home had been somewhere tropical. 

She'd left Pinocchio's caravan some days ago. Far from the lush, green forests of her homeland, the land here is stark and brown. Skinny, nearly leave-less trees tower into the graying sky. The wind is harsh and unforgiving, burning her eyes and chafing her skin. And the further she feels that they are heading in the right direction, the darker the day ever becomes. 

She hadn't expected the loneliness to take such a toll. It's been near on three days without speaking to a living soul. Villages are becoming few and far between. Her meal the night before, a squirrel speared with her mother's arrow and roasted on a stick, had been eaten in solitude before a quiet, wind chilled night in a makeshift tent covered with Alice's concealment cloak, with only Dandelion and the small fire for warmth. 

She wraps her scarf around her face. She's lucky it's dry though. It's definitely cold enough to be snowing, and if a storm started her and Dandelion wouldn't stand a chance overnight. For now the fire keeps them safe. 

The last dregs of the fading sun disappears completely, drowning the world in blackness. And just in that instant, a blast of wind blows out the fire. 

"No, no, no, " Emma curses, trying her best to relight the kindling. But her gloved hands are so cold they're trembling, and the wind quickly snuffs out any sparks the flint can generate. 

"No, no, no, not now" Emma tucks her hands under her arms, and urges Dandelion to her feet. If the two can't find shelter soon, neither of them will last the night. Her teeth are chattering, her whole face burns and her hands and feet are so far gone into numbness she can scarcely remember she has them. 

The entire world around Emma is a blur of blackness. The trees swirl in her path as she slowly moves, leading Dandelion by her side. She thinks she sees a figure gallop by her side, but she can barely see an inch in front of her face, and can't hear a thing over her own heart pounding. Even the magic thread, previously a constant sparkling line on the ground where it trails from her its place fastened to her sash, is hardly visible. 

Emma stumbles over a...something and tumbles to her knees. Deep, black despair takes over heart. She can't see anything now. all she can do is cling to Dandelion's halter, and try not to cry. 

Her tears would surely just freeze. 

After a moment that feels like an eternity, Emma feels someone grab her by the arm and pull her to her feet. Panic rises in her throat but is drowned out by the cold and hopelessness. Wherever they're taking her, she'll go. 

The next thing Emma feels is the ground hitting her knees as she's suddenly toppled into a haven of warmth. 

She looks up, finding herself in a temporary shelter of wood and tent, with a fire pit in the center below a filtered opening for the smoke. The fire itself doesn't seem to be providing much light, but Emma practically throws herself in front of it, trying to thaw her frozen limbs. She's curled over and can barely move her fingers. Someone's led Dandelion to a space cleared on the other side of the fire, and the creature has knelt before the flames and fallen almost immediately asleep. She feels a hand press into her back and lift a bowl of warm liquid to her mouth. 

"Get the broth into you, let it thaw" 

The heat is so small compared to the impenetrable force that her freezing body feels. But slowly, but surely, the stiffness starts to fade, and Emma slumps forward. She turns her head, to see the face of the person who saved her from certain death. 

Stirring the pot of broth is a small, fair woman in a heavy, fur lined cloak. 

Emma chokes out a question, "Who are you?" 

"My people call me Vasilisa" 

The woman presses another bowl on her before speaking again. 

"Finish up, and tell me how you came to our stark and frozen land". 

As she finishes, the life seems to find it's way back into Emma, and she stops and breathes in, before opening her mouth and letting her story roll out. 

The woman takes it all in, with more ease than Emma would have expected. 

"Three movements you saw? Red, white and black?" 

Emma nods. Who is this woman, and why does she seem to accept this all with such ease? 

"The three riders. That's all that could be. Baba Yaga's riders of the dawn, the noon and the dusk." 

"Baba Yaga?" Emma asks. Riders of the dawn...that would make sense with the visions. And maybe even...she had been seeing the figures out in the woods...it had been so cold that she hadn't known for sure... 

"Baba Yaga is the witch of this birch wood. She used to be known as a wise woman. Unpredictable yes, and often ruthless, but not cruel. She would as often give advice and aid as she would trick. But something happened, not even a generation ago. She stole the light from this wood, the light from all of our lives." 

The woman- Vasilisa- turns gray in the face, before continuing. 

"The way the stories go, she's even begun to eat the flesh of lost children" 

Emma's mind is seized by a single memory, the smell. The sickly, sweet, meaty smell that had come with her vision. It hits her what it must have been, and Emma has to double over to stop herself from retching. 

"If the object you carry is indeed the Baba Yaga's heart, then returning it to her could only bring good. The people of this wood have suffered enough since she stole the light away." 

"Do you know where we could find this...Baba Yaga?" Emma asks. 

Vasilisa's face twists into a frightened, but certain, countenance. 

"Pretty sure I have a good idea" 

After she insists that the two stay in until morning (though how she can tell morning without the sun, Emma will never know), she leads Emma to bed of straw topped by a sheepskin blanket and tells her to rest while she can, get the warmth back into her bones. She stays up to tend the fire, and in the low light, Emma still manages to drift off. 

When she awakes, Vasilisa has retired herself, and the fire has burned down to harmless embers. 

Emma rises, and goes to remove Dandelion's saddle and wash her down as well as she can using a cloth from her satchel and some melted snow. She sets out her remaining beet cubes for Dandelion along with the water. She's almost out, and will need to trade for more the next time she finds a town, or Dandelion would tire and not be able to carry her anymore. The stout animal is still stolidly asleep at the moment. She drinks from the bucket of slush, splashing some on her face, and retrieves a package of wrapped grain from her satchel. On the far side, near where Vasilisa lays, she notices a small shelf, where a little wooden carved doll sits. 

By the time Vasilisa has woken, Emma has the porridge simmering over the embers of the fire. 

"You saved and sheltered me, you could at least let me make you breakfast". She stirs the bubbling mush "It's nothing fancy, but I've been eating a lot of it lately". 

The two finish the porridge, and Vasilisa wraps up the sleep rolls before pulling several strings and collapsing her shelter. All of these wrap neatly into a roll that fits snugly onto the back of her own horse, a slender bay. Emma checks her own satchel and saddles and mounts Dandelion. 

The difference between the blinding blizzard of the night and before and the thin, gray, dull clarity of the day astounds Emma. She knows it's not night, but there's really nothing save the lack of moon and stars to confirm it for her. 

There's a strange, white halo hovering at the edge of the horizon. It takes a minute before Emma realizes that it must be the sun. 

After an hour or two of following in no particular direction, Emma finally asks 

"How do you know which way we should go?" 

Vasilisa touches a bundle wrapped onto her sash "My mother's blessing has always guided me through my life as long as I remember to cherish it. " 

Her smile quirks "Also there's only one thing that could make the tracks I'm following". 

The days stretch on with almost no change in the environment. They stop when the red rider passes, to let the horses rest and water, and eat some of the dried meat Emma has packed in the supplies. 

It's here when Emma finally decides to ask the question that's been plaguing her. 

"Why are you out here Vasilisa?" 

Vasilisa pauses and sighs. Her fair hair has begin to come lose from her braid and fall across her face. It occurs to Emma that she appears much younger than she initially thought, perhaps even her own age. 

"My stepmother never liked me. She thought that I was a threat to her own daughters' chances for marriage especially- nevermind that I have no real interest in marrying. Several moons ago, I broke the last candle we had in the hut, and she cast me out, told me not to come back until I could bring the light back". 

"She tossed you out like trash? She doesn't even deserve the name stepmother". 

Vasilisa laughs. "I'm not even sure what I thought I was going to do, I mean, I'm an unmarried daughter of a simple merchant. I can cook and clean as well as any other girl here, I'm not a warrior or a magician, but what was I supposed to do, go back and beg to be allowed back?" 

"We're both adventurers then" Emma says "You for your pride, me because I'm a really terrible princess". 

"You're a princess?" Vasilisa says, eying Emma's old dress and patched cloak. 

"Don't get too excited. This is what I'm good at. The whole ruling thing is going to end up being my sister's job". 

The day drags on, gray and unremarkable. As she begins to tire, Emma wonders how long this whole journey is going to take. 

At one point, Vasilisa pauses, and looks clear off onto the horizon. 

"There's another storm coming" 

Emma blanches. The last night was bad enough, if the next storm traps them out here, they could be lost for days. 

The black rider passes to their left, making Emma nearly topple. He's never been that close before. 

The true blackness falls not even a minute after, and Vasilisa lights a lantern carried on her saddle and continues to lead. 

"I must conserve my oil. We should take shelter soon". 

Emma's not fighting her on any part of that assessment. 

Besides, she's starting to feel a little uneasy. Yes, the first heart she returned was to an elderly witch, but she had been hospitable. A child eating hag? How was she even supposed to get close to her, much less convince her to take her heart back? 

It's not like she could just toss it back in the general direction of her chest...she thinks. 

Also, Emma seriously hopes she no longer qualifies as a child. 

But it's not a quarter of an hour before Vasilisa points over the horizon. 

"That's it" she says "We can probably sneak it once it appears she's asleep". 

As the domicile comes more clearly into view, Emma can hardly believe her eyes. 

The entire hut stands atop of two chicken legs. 

Well that explains what Vasilisa meant by the tracks. 

When they reach the front gate, Emma is horrified to recognize the fence posts for what they were. 

Human bones, topped every arms length or so with an entire skull. 

The two young women dismount their horses, and tie them to a tree in the line of the sight of the hut, but not close enough to be noticeable. 

"We'll be back soon girl" Emma says, patting Dandelion's sturdy nose. "If we're lucky in one piece" The creature whinnies in return. She throws the strap of her satchel over one shoulder, and the two begin the trek across the snow dusted clearing. 

The gate itself is a set of teeth. Huge ones, not human even a little. Emma doesn't even want to know what they're from. 

But it's also a problem. 

"How are we supposed to sneak..." 

But she's cut off by an earthshaking tremor, and a loud cackle coming from the interior of the hut. 

"WHO IS OUT THERE. I SMELL A HUMAN.". 

Emma quakes with fear. A wizened crone explodes out the front of the hut. She's hunched over, but still clearly quite powerful even with age. Her long, gray hair is held back by a kerchief. And she glides out, on what appears to be...a giant mortar and pestle? 

That can't be right, but Emma's not in the questioning mood right now. 

The old woman sniffs the air; 

"YOUNG MAIDENS, I SHALL HAVE A FINE MEAL OF YOU TONIGHT" 

OK, Emma thinks, they both do count as children still. 

She swallows, and sucks up every ounce of courage she has, and steps in front of Vasilisa. 

One of the few lessons in court that Emma had paid attention to that been taught in poise. Snow had taught her how to speak to a crowd. How to be commanding, yet diplomatic. How to make some see your point of view while never appearing weak. Snow had called it the "Queen voice". Emma had never supposed she would need it so badly. 

And so, Emma summons the best Queen voice she has ever used, and shouts; 

"Baba Yaga, great witch of this wood, we have sought you across the land. We seek to return something that has been taken from you. If you choose to eat us, you may have yourself a fine meal tonight, but you will never have your heart returned to your body." 

Baba Yaga snaps her fingers and the horrible teeth lock creaks open. 

"My heart? Yes I do seem to remember. Stolen by that insolent young Queen. So upset when I didn't give her the answer she wanted." 

She beckons with one of her crooked, broken fingers. 

"If you indeed have it, then come forth girl. You'll be much easier to catch from this side of the gate" 

Emma swallows again, tries to ignore how badly she's trembling, and strides forward with what she hopes is confidence. 

She also whispers to Vasilisa, who's both shorter and thinner than her, practically disappearing behind her. 

"Keep behind me, and maybe she won't notice you". 

Vasilisa doesn't respond however, furiously whispering, but not to Emma. 

"Stay quiet. Speak up only when she has finished a deal. Pose a question. " 

Emma ignores it for now. 

Baba Yaga's hut is plain and dim on the inside. A single room with a fire on one side, and a bed atop a pile of straw on the other. 

The fire is roaring quite well, Emma notices. And yet it still remains dim. 

Also the cauldron hanging over that fire could definitely hold her. 

She stands and faces Baba Yaga (strategically away from the fire). 

She takes a deep breath and removes the wooden box from it's depths. The lock unlatches easily and she holds it a front of her, open wide so the contents of it can be easily seen. 

The old woman bends off and sniffs long and hard with her long and crooked nose. 

She titters for a moment "Yes, that is indeed mine". 

And before Emma can even say another word, the old witch snatches up the pulsating organ, and swallows it whole with a grotesque slurping noise. 

And while Emma is trying to stop herself from retching, the woman pounds her chest a few times. 

"Ahah, good as new. Not even shelf stale! Well, begone now young princess, I no longer have any quarrel with you, begone before I get a might peckish again". 

Emma gapes for a moment before even moving, when Vasilisa appears from behind her in a flash. 

It occurs to her that the hut is quite small inside. She had to duck to even get in the door. How had Vasilisa escaped notice? 

"Wise woman, I have come a long way to ask you for a light so that I may return it to my people." 

The woman sniffs 

"Now why should I do that girl? In the dark no one can come to bother me" 

Vasilisa steels "I have a question of my own. The three riders seen in this wood, the ones in white, red and black. Who are they?" 

The woman's laugh is no longer quite so chilling. 

"Why they are the dawn, the noon and the twilight of course. My faithful servants all three" 

We figured that out already Vasilisa, Emma thinks, Why on earth are you asking her that? 

Baba Yaga's nose barely comes up to Vasilisa's chest. Why had Emma just been so certain that she was small and easily hidden? 

"I have a question for you now" Baba Yaga says, suspicious "How did you sneak into my hut without my notice?" 

Vasilisa smiles, and touches the bundle in her sash. 

"With my mother's blessing". 

Baba Yaga seizes and huffs. "I should have known. You two must begone now, I won't have blessings in my house, all they ever cause is trouble" 

And with that, she grabs a broom and pushes the two out the front door of the hut. 

Emma stands up and brushes off her dress. 

"Well that didn't exactly..." 

Suddenly the front door opens again, and the witch hurls something out at Vasilisa. 

"Your light, take it and leave now". 

"So much for hospitality" Emma mutters, looking over at the object. 

She cringes when she realizes that it too is a large skull, but inside are some of the most brilliantly burning coals Emma has ever seen. When she realizes that they put off no heat, she understand that they must be magic. 

"What are you going to do with them?" Emma asks. 

"I have an idea" she says, eyes sparkling. "How good are you at climbing trees?" 

"Actually quite good" Emma says. 

The two find the tree that they had hitched the horses to, and Vasilisa scurries up the branches, with Emma close behind. 

Emma finally asks "What did you mean, when you said "by my mother's blessing"?" 

Vasilisa smiles and pauses atop a large branch, and carefully unwraps the bundle on her sash. 

It's the little wooden doll Emma has seen the morning before. 

"When I was a little girl, my mother became very ill. She made me this doll, and told me that I must care for it, and that if I did whenever I needed help, I could just tell it my trouble and it would help me somehow. It has always been by my side, and always come to my aid. My mother died not long after, and this is her blessing onto me." 

Emma laughs "That's a great story, but I think I'll keep my bow". 

When they reach the top, Vasilisa's face is aglow. 

The view is incredible, Emma notes. Nothing but forest as far as they eye can see. 

At once, Vasilisa lifts the skull as high as she can, and hurls it into the air. 

The skull makes an arc before the light from the coals explodes outward, and washes itself over the horizon. 

All at once, the gray lifts. The trees become green again. The moon reappears, as do the stars. The night sky takes back it's own blue color, and even the clouds in the distance reclaim their own unique color. 

Vasilisa lets out a yell of delight. 

"What are you going to do now Vasilisa?" 

The two have settles companionably on the top branch. 

"I'll start back to my family's home tomorrow morning. If they don't want me back, I'll still find some way to make my way. The light has been returned, that's enough for me" 

"I can tell the story to a few people I pass on the road" Emma says, remembering the taverns and inns she had passed on her journey "If the story gets back to your village that you were the one who brought back the light, your stepmother would have no choice but to welcome you" 

Vasilisa laughs again "Oh, she just might die from that". 

"Would you like me to embellish it, make it a bit more exciting?" 

"Can you add something about how I convinced Baba Yaga to give me the light by doing housework? That's all they ever let me do, if my stepmother knew it made me a heroine, I don't know what she would do!" 

"I think I can manage that" 

"And what about you Emma?" Vasilisa counters "Are you going to return home and rest now?" 

Emma looks down at her feet, suddenly bone tired. 

"That was just the first heart. There are so many more journeys I shall have to make".

**Author's Note:**

> Started writing this after "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter", and I fully intend to finish it, even if its after the show has been off the air forever.


End file.
